Quotes About Little Bighorn

Sitting Bull is known today for stalwart resistance, for being the last of his tribe to surrender to the U.S. government. But at the Little Bighorn, he did not want to fight. He wanted to talk. This may be his most important legacy. As he recognized when he instructed his nephew to approach Reno's skirmish line with a shield instead of a rifle, our children are best served not by a self-destructive blaze of glory, but by the hardest path of all: survival and accommodation.

The last word about the Little Bighorn belongs to perhaps Custer's most insightful chronicler, Robert Utley. "The simplest answer, usually overlooked, is that the army lost largely because the Indians won," he writes. "To ascribe defeat entirely to military failings is to devalue Indian strength and leadership." The invasion of the Black Hills and the order to abandon the unceded lands galvanized the Lakotas and Northern Cheyennes.